Good Movies, 2011 Investment Strategy, and Basic Financial Terms

It’s not often I get a chance to travel to California to visit my family, but I’ll be flying today from east coast to west to spend quality time with my brother, sister-in-law, and mother for Thanksgiving. It will be a fast week; I have plans for just about every day I’ll be in California. My brother and his wife are big Harry Potter fans, so I plan on seeing the new movie. I haven’t read the books or seen all the existing movies, so I’ll need to be briefed so I know what’s going on in the story.

I don’t see movies in theaters often any more; there aren’t many films that look interesting to me, even if I were to have the time to go see them. Have you seen any good movies lately?

Here are some articles for weekend reading.

Even if you’re still paying down your student loans, you don’t have to be a slave to your debt. There are a number of opportunities for recent graduates to cut back certain expenses in order to both make those debt payments and have an enjoyable existence. This is my most recent article for Currency from American Express.

Investor Junkie shares his 2011 investment strategy. I’m still working on my 2010 investing strategy, as I haven’t been investing much this past year besides my 401(k) (into a variety of stock funds), my 2009 SEP IRA into the total stock market fund, and a portion of my 2010 SEP IRA into the same fund. Next year, I will have no new contributions for my employer-sponsored 401(k) and I’ll be looking for alternatives.

Evan from My Journey to Millions, who became 29 years old this week, offers some basic financial terms for children and teens. He critiques an article from the Wall Street Journal that declares the three need-to-know terms are direct deposit, dollar cost averaging, and index mutual funds. I agree with Evan that these terms are good but miss the mark; Evan suggests overdraft fees, ATM fees, and credit rating, all good replacements. If I had to choose three terms every child or teen should know about money, they’d be compound interest, amortization, and moderation — three things that if understood could vastly increase wealth over a lifetime.

Welcome to California! Unfortunately, it’s not that warm over here. BTW, how does your Leaderboard in terms of points work on the right side of the homepage? I think I’ve got a decent amount of points (585) to be #1 right?

Where in CA are you visiting? You brought the chilly east coast weather with you–thanks for that! ;)

I haven’t been overwhelmed by movies this year. “Easy A” was cute, but a bit thin. “Never Let Me Go” was very melancholy. I’ll wait ’til the madness dies down to see Harry Potter. Looking forward to “The King’s Speech” (love love LOVE Colin Firth!). Best movie I’ve seen so far this year: “Toy Story 3”–hands down.

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